Just when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seemed to have smoothed out the rough patches in his relationship with India, he ignited another firestorm by inviting a convicted terrorist from a Sikh separatist movement to dinner.
The Canadian government swiftly rescinded the invitation to Indo-Canadian businessman Jaspal Atwal, claiming an unexplained failure in the vetting process was responsible for his invitation to a dinner reception in New Delhi.

Atwal and three accomplices were convicted of attempted murder against Malkiat Singh Sidhu, a minister from the Punjab province, which separatists believe should be detached from India and converted into a Sikh religious state called “Khalistan.” Another team of Sikh militants eventually succeeded in murdering Sidhu five years later.

Atwal was a member of what amounts to the youth wing of the Khalistani movement when he participated in the ambush of Sidhu, who was shot twice during the incident. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, but the verdict was overturned on appeal. He later admitted to a parole board he was the triggerman in the attack.

It turns out that Atwal was charged with targeting another politician for death in the Eighties, a proponent of Indian unity named Ujjal Dosanjh. Atwal was acquitted on charges of attempting to beat Dosanjh to death in a parking lot in 1985. A parking lot in Canada, that is. Dosanjh is the former premier of British Columbia. He belongs to Justin Trudeau’s political party.

Dosanjh is still very much alive, although he narrowly missed boarding a plane that was bombed by Sikh extremists the same year he was pummeled in the parking lot—a bombing that has long been considered Canada’s worst mass murder, as all 329 passengers and crew were killed.

Canadian officials grew visibly uncomfortable fielding questions from Indian media about the alleged gaffe, as the mood in India began ticking over from stunned disbelief to outrage and the Canadian government scrambled to conduct damage control operations.